Hallowed be your name

Well, good morning everybody. My name is René, and I am another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. Who's glad they're at church today? What a great service already. I'm loving it.

So some of you already know this, but before I became a pastor for about a dozen years, I worked as a DJ on the radio playing rock and roll. And for those of you who didn't know, you're going, "That explains a lot." But so there's a story behind that. Obviously you can't be on the radio and say, "Hey everybody, you're with Schlepfer because people would look at the radio and go, 'Gesundheit, did he just sneeze?'" It just, I had to come up with what they call an "air name." And I was happy to do it because I felt like honestly my entire name, my name has been sort of an albatross around my neck.

It is a Swiss name from start to finish, and it just caused me a lot of trouble. Like René. Here in the States, especially when I grew up as a kid, I mean, you know, people would say that was a girl's name. You know, in school the teacher would call on René and I'd raise my hand and two girls behind me would raise my hand in class, and all the kids would laugh at me and saying, "Oh, you've got a girl's name. I got sick and tired of it. My middle name is Jennifer, but I don't like to talk about it." That's not really true.

But, and then the last name, S-C-H-L-A-E-P-F-E-R, it's just this nonsensical combination of consonants and vowels that Americans don't know how to pronounce. Americans, my own phone. I go, "Hey Siri, call home," and my phone says, "Now calling Ren, skaliep, for my own phone!" So I was searching for a name that would be simple to pronounce, manly, and you know, just kind of easy to comprehend.

And so here's what I came up with for my air name. I was working at a Top 40 radio station in Portland, Oregon, and I was also going to school by day, working at the radio station at night, school by day, at seminary, studying to be a pastor, and we were getting into word study. You know, Hebrew meanings and Greek meanings, and like many first-year seminary students, I turned it into a word study. I overthought it.

So here's what I came up with for my secular Top 40 radio disjockey name. First name, Ben. Like our guest worship leader, Ben. That's a strong name, isn't that? Plus in Hebrew, it means, anybody know, son of very good seminary students? And because in God, I'm, for the last name, I came up with stone. I mean, that's good. Stone. Because in Christ, I am a Ben of the stone. See? I'm an adopted son of the rock of ages. I'm a co-air with Christ the cornerstone. This is my identity in Christ. I'm a Ben stone.

And I thought, maybe somebody asked me, "Is that an air name? Is that your real name? How did you come up with that?" I'll be able to tell him, and I will have an evangelistic conversation that will lead to them coming to the Lord. Just instantly. And I just thought it's a perfect name. In fact, I thought, I might even change my name legally to Ben stone because it's unlockable and impossible to mispronounce.

So the radio station got a jingle company to make jingles. Ben stone on magic 107. And they got billboards advertising Ben stone coming to magic. In other words, there was no turning back, right? They'd spent money on this. And so my first debut night on the air, magic 107 is KMJK Portland's new music leader. This is Ben stone with your top ten at ten.

I turn off the microphone. I look over at the request line. The switchboard is all lit up. All blinking. First of the blinking lights I punch. Boom! First call. First night on the air. Magic 107. And I hear a junior high-aged guy approximately on the other end of the line. And some other junior high-aged guys kind of snickering in the background laughing. They're listening to the radio station. And he goes, "Is this Ben stone?" And I said, "Yes, it is man." Thinking, "Here comes that evangelistic conversation already. The first call." And he goes, "Me and my friend just want to know, have you been stoned lately?" No! I chose a name and it was still stupid. Not to mention the initials.

So my name is René Schlepfer and I'm sticking to it. It's my God-given name. But I bring that up because I'm trying to make a point here. And the point is this. I was actually on to something because in the Bible names mean something more than just how they sound. You know Ben stone, the son of the rock of ages. Abraham means father of many nations. Jesus means Jehovah saves. And even the name of God, the Father, means something very special that you and I are called to protect.

So let's talk about it. We've been in the series, The Jesus Way, going through the Sermon on the Mount. And last week we started the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus teaches us how to pray and the Lord's Prayer. And what we're doing is going through the Lord's Prayer line by line, investigating it. And today we're at the phrase, "Hallow it be thy name." Say that with me. "Hallow it be thy name."

Now in my observation and experience, most people have no idea what this means. It's got to be the least understood phrase in the Lord's Prayer. Everybody kind of goes, "Our Father in heaven." That's beautiful. "Hallow it be thy name." Not sure what that means. Let's just move on to "Thy kingdom come." Right? Now obviously Jesus thought this was pretty important because he included it. So what in the world does this actually mean?

Well grab your message notes. Because I want to do some detective work today. I want to go into the Bible for some clues about what this really means biblically. And this is going to mean like ratcheting your brain into focus. Everybody ready for that? Everybody ready for some like some deep work, some detective work in the Bible today? Raise your hand if you are ready to be a Bible detective.

This is not only going to help you solve the mystery of what does this mean. We're actually going to look at two Bible mysteries today. We're going to look at what is the second phrase in the Lord's Prayer mean. But we're also going to look at what is the second of the two of the Ten Commandments mean. What does the second of the Ten Commandments mean? And when you discover the answer to those mysteries you are also going to discover a major answer to the question of why are you even here on planet earth? What is your purpose in life? So I'm very excited about this. Let's solve these mysteries.

First let's dig into the phrase "Halloward be thy name." And let's take it apart. What does "halloward" mean? It's not a word we use these days in English anymore. Well "halloward" or "hallowed" kind of sounds like Halloween, doesn't it? And in fact "halloween" the word is related to this because "halloween" is short for "hallowed evening" or "sacred evening" which means it is a night set apart for something very special. So to "hallow" something means to make it special, to set it apart.

Dallas Willard defines "hallowed" as uniquely respected, treasured, and loved. That's what it means for something to be hallowed. All right? October 31st is unique in the calendar days of the year, for example. Now that also means the opposite of "hallowed" is to disrespect, devalue, and disregard something. And so we don't want people to have this attitude. We want people to have this attitude toward the name of God.

And that brings us to what does "your name" mean? "Hallowed be your name." Well as I said in Bible times a name meant more than just the literal phonetic syllables of your name. The name meant somebody's whole character and reputation. And this idea survives even in English today when somebody says, "You have slandered my name." They don't just mean, "Well you made fun of my name," like René Schlupfer. It means something deeper than that. It means you have slandered my reputation. You've made me look bad, right?

So let me just give you one example of this in Scripture. Way back in Exodus, Moses says to God, "I want to see your glory," and watch how God responds. And the Lord said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my," what? Say it with me, "name the Lord." Now in English Bibles when the Lord L-O-R-D is in all caps, that always means that's the most holy name of God, Yahweh. All right? "I will proclaim my name, Yahweh, in your presence," then watch what happens next.

"Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with Moses and proclaimed his," what again? His name, the Lord, "and he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming the Lord," the Lord, that's his name, those are the syllables, Yahweh. "But then the way he proclaims his name is to talk about what his name stands for, his character, his reputation. Now he's elaborating on his name, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin." This is all included when we talk about the name of God. That's what the name of God encompasses.

Now this explains maybe some worship songs you haven't understood. Worship songs about, you know, the name of Jesus or we trust in the name. And I used to hate those kinds of songs because I thought that sounds superstitious to me, like I'm gonna say some magic name and, you know, be protected from evil or something. Well, those worship song lyrics reflect Bible verses like this, Psalm 20:7, "Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the," what? "the name of the Lord our God." Or in Proverbs 18:10 where it says, "the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are saved." And I never understood these verses. What do they mean?

Well, when they talk about the name of God and running to the name of God and trusting in the name of God, it doesn't just mean the syllables. It's not magic. It's like a spell, like expecto patronum or something like that. What those verses are talking about is all the character qualities that encompass the name of God. So running to the name of God, for example, when I'm down on myself because I feel like I'm a failure as a Christian or as a father or a husband, I run to the name and I remember, "But God is compassionate and gracious." Or when I feel like just exploding in anger on someone, I remember to run to the name and I remember, "No, God is slow to anger." And that means I can be slow to anger too because he's slow to anger with me.

And when I just feel like God's gonna give up on me because I've been so bad I run to the name and I remember part of his name is that he's always faithful and that he abounds in love and forgives sin. So when I'm running to the name of God, it doesn't mean I'm magically pronouncing the name and that's doing something in a superstitious way. It means I'm running to what the name of God means. Isn't that beautiful? So that's the name of God. We've talked about what it means to "hollow." Halloweens is set apart. The name is all the character qualities.

So what does it mean to specially set apart the name of God, to "hollow" the name of God? Why did Jesus tell me to pray for that? Isn't God's name already? "Hollowed" all the time? Isn't he always holy despite why do I have to pray for that? Well there was a very fascinating book written by a woman named Carmen Joy Imbs named "Bearing God's Name." Carmen was a part of our Bible conference this year, dynamic young scholar, and she talks about how 1,400 years before Jesus the Ten Commandments were given up on Mount Sinai.

But one of the least understood commandments is the Second Commandment which is "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." She calls it the Second Commandment or the Name Commandment. What does the name command really mean? What does it mean to take the name of the Lord your God in vain? Now I was raised in a church and a family where we were taught that to take the name of God in vain was using Jesus Christ or God as a swear word. Basically you were going to hell if you did that. That's the way I was raised. How many of you were raised this way? That that's what it meant. Okay.

In our house this was taught so much so that even gosh was off limits because gosh is too close to God. "Geez" was totally taboo because "Geez" us it's too close. And in my house I couldn't even say "Giminy Cricket" either because initials "JC" Jesus Christ. It was a stand-in. Now and you got to remember that I had a Swiss immigrant mom who she didn't know what any American swear words were and she legitimately thought "Giminy Cricket" was like the S-word or the F-word. She thought "Giminy Cricket" man that's one of the bad ones. One of my earliest memories is I got my mouth washed out with soap for that and and I remember going "She's taking me by the ear. Mom, Jiminy Cricket is not a swear word. Stop saying this." She was never convinced and I just couldn't say it.

Well I no longer think that that's what taking the name of the Lord in vain means. Now just to be clear I do not think it's a good idea to use God's name as a swear word. It's dishonoring to God and it offends people among many other reasons but I don't think that that's what this command is about. Because what could this mean that it's so important that it made the top ten of all the commandments? Probably not to forbid little kids from saying "Gosh and Jiminy Cricket." So what's the deal here?

Well as Dr. Imes points out the literal translation of the Hebrew is "Thou shalt not bear or carry the name of Yahweh your God in vain." But most translators decided well that doesn't make any sense in English it certainly doesn't because in English names aren't carried or born, they're spoken and so they thought this must have something to do with speaking the name of God in some unworthy way. But as she says the problem with that translation is you're overlooking the literary context which actually completely explains what this means.

The closest passage to the giving of the Ten Commandments it's a passage that absolutely illuminates this it's the key that unlocks the mystery. Do you want to see it? It's Exodus 28. Watch this it gives specific instructions for what the high priest should wear. He had to wear a very specific garment. He had a breastplate basically a vest and it had on it each one of these precious stones engraved with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. Now why would he have the names of the twelve tribes? Because he's representing God to those people. That's why it says whenever Aaron the first high priest enters the holy place he will bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on his breastplate.

He was literally bearing, wearing the names of the tribes of Israel before God. He was their representative. Now the Bible also says that Aaron had a thin strip of gold on his head with another name the Lord's name on his forehead because he bore the name of the Lord to the people as God's representative to them. And so he's literally a name-bearer. I mean that is his role. He is wearing these names because he represented the people to God and God to the people.

Then in several verses God says to all the people of Israel you have this same role to the world. The nation of Israel are to be name-bearers of God to the world. Kind of like God's priests, God's representative, God's ambassadors to the entire planet. They're calling their purpose, their vocation. The thing that they were born to do was to represent their God to the rest of humanity. The nation of Israel were the name-bearers of God to the world.

So when God said do not bear the name of the Lord in vain, it means a lot more than yelling, "Oh my God!" In fact it's not primarily about swearing. It's about living. It equals represent me well. Bear my name well to the world. Now in case you're going, "I still kind of don't quite get it." Let me tell you another story.

My friend Wes Davis is a pastor and he was in India for a conference and his host there who was Indian noticed that Wes only drank coke the entire time. And he said why are you only drinking coke? And Wes said well drinking water can be problematic sometimes for people not used to the water in certain countries. So for me coke is safer. It's kind of my go-to drink when I'm on mission trips. And his host said well that's kind of funny because until 1993 you couldn't even find one coke in all of India. And it's true.

What happened was this. 1950 coke came to India, failed even though they tried ads. They tried billboards. They tried radio commercials. Later TV commercials. Complete abject failure. In 1977 they left. Because they couldn't make any headway. They actually left the whole country until 1993 when coke came back with a new strategy. And now in 2024 it is easier to find coke in India than clean water which I do not think is progress. But what it shows is their new strategy worked.

So what was the new strategy? What possibly could have worked when advertisements, radio commercials, TV commercials, billboards, all traditional marketing was an abject failure? Well coke had a new strategy no other company had ever used before. They called it brand ambassadors, brand evangelists who were basically paid to simply drink coke in public. They hired Indian celebrities, sports figures, actors so that they would just drink. I mean not in ad campaigns just paparazzi would take pictures of celebrities drinking a coke and that they would put them in magazines or or fans would later post them on social media.

They didn't pay a cent for traditional advertising. They only paid these celebrities to be photographed drinking coke literally lifting up the brand name of coke. And since their success with this strategy in India coke's tried this in every other country and I guess it works because every day in the world coke now sells 1.9 billion products a day. In fact I was reading that the number two most recognized symbol in the world today number two is the cross. Number one the Coca-Cola logo. They say 99% of people in the world when they see the red and white they know that's coke.

Why? Well coke would tell you their most successful strategy is brand ambassadors. Now it's ubiquitous every brand does this now but coke is the one that started this whole concept or did they? Because 3,000 years before that the Bible was saying Israel's purpose was sort of to walk all around the world and kind of to be the brand ambassadors of God to bear his name to the world to represent his character his grace his compassion and this theme runs all through the Bible and now that you know it you'll see it everywhere like I will make your name famous from now on so people will praise you forever and ever or join me everyone let's praise the Lord together let's make him famous let's make his name glorious to all saying we're God's brand ambassadors.

Now the Bible says the people of Israel didn't always do this too well in fact in Ezekiel 36:20 God says but when they arrived in the nations where they went they profaned my holy name I was concerned for my holy reputation which the house of Israel profaned among the nations where they went he's saying their behavior has been so bad they've caused my reputation to be mocked and of course that's what happens I mean when there's bad pastors right and criminal behavior comes out for the next several months pastors are roundly mocked and Christians are mocked and people stay away from even healthy churches when we are bad brand ambassadors.

But when we're good brand ambassadors it can change the world and who was the best? Jesus. He said I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world in other words Jesus did perfectly what Israel was called to do. You know when we look at Jesus I love this Rembrandt etching of Jesus with the people when we see Jesus with racial outsiders like Samaritans or despised authority figures like tax collectors or lowly people like prostitutes or little kids or the sick we see the name of God manifest we see all those characteristics of God the compassion and the grace and the love and the faithfulness manifested in the life of Jesus.

And when he did that he was hallowing God's name he was lifting it up so that when people looked at him being like the name of God describes God the father to be people were drawn to God they glorified God because they saw those characteristics and now the New Testament says that's our role it says things like if you suffer as a Christian don't be ashamed but praise God that you bear the name in other words even when you suffer how you suffer can manifest the name of God.

Now I am a name-bearer I'm like a brand ambassador not for coke and not even for Twin Lakes Church but for God. So how is our brand doing right now saw the stat 46% of Americans say that when it comes to what's happening in the country today religion is part of the problem not the solution the problem. Now whether or not you agree with that could you say that we have a brand identity problem absolutely this is why it is so important for us at TLC to always have as part of our DNA to be in the community to do good for our County not for even our churches reputation but for the Lord.

I love that for example Kingsman the group here at Twin Lakes Church our car Club that put on the car show they do this all year long they are brand ambassadors not for themselves not for Twin Lakes Church but for God part of the car show was a blood drive we had over 50 people give blood during the car show part of what they do is they go into local high schools to to endow vocational training for kids to learn how to work on cars and they're very clear that we are a Christian car club but they're being brand ambassadors for God.

Here's the way I envision it sometimes I pray that this church and my life kind of moves the needle a little bit from people profaning the name of God to hallowing God's name what moves the needle when they see the name and characteristics of God represented well in our lives like Jesus said let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.

And we do that when we're kind to somebody we do that when we you know build the Hope Center where our food ministry and our 12-step ministry and our mental health support ministries are going to be housed we do that in large and small ways being name bearers brand ambassadors so that the people who watch us hallow God instead of profaning God.

So now do you see a little bit what Jesus is meaning when he says pray hallowed be your name? When you say this you're not just saying when you pray our Father in heaven hallowed be your name you're not just saying well God sure hope people like you you're saying father may your character be made manifest in my life.

So ask yourself does the life I live have a natural tendency to cause people to move closer toward interest in Jesus because bottom line is that's what it means to hallow the name of God in your life. I'll close with this and then we're gonna take communion a man named Chuck who led a college ministry on campus at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo shared a story about a friend of his named Alan he met Alan when Chuck was a freshman Alan was a junior and Alan was a science student and he said there is not enough evidence to convince me to become a Christian I'm an atheist but I like hanging out with you Christians at your Christian group you're friendly and so they included Alan and all of their hangouts.

And then toward the end of that first year together something happened a bunch of them had gotten together for a praise night on the beach and Chuck writes Alan came along to enjoy the sunset the roaring bonfire by the time evening was over Alan had made a commitment to follow Jesus and the next day he came to me to tell me what had happened I said but Alan I thought you were never going to become a believer you're an atheist you said there was not enough evidence for you to become a Christian and here was Alan's reply well but Chuck that's precisely why I now believe it's a year of seeing you all love love each other love the world that struck me somehow I never considered that evidence before a good scientist you know considers all the facts and I simply have not found the love you Christians have anywhere else that is evidence enough for me that Christ Jesus is Lord they were in name bearers to him and so he hallowed the name of God.

Wouldn't you love to be a good name bearer of God who wants to be a good name bearer of God to your world? Well then let's pray that God by the power of his Spirit would enable us to do just that.

Heavenly Father may we live in such a way in large and small ways that we cause your name to be honored to be hallowed in our daily lives and and we're well aware that we can't choose when we get to bear the name we bear the name all the time we bear the name when we drive we bear the name when we parent we bear the name in terms of how what we're like as a spouse what we're like as a worker we're bearing your name everywhere we go.

So may we bear your name well and if there's somebody here who wants to say God I'm not sure I am a name bearer I want to bear your name I want to be a name bearer of the God of love to the world I pray that they would pray I surrender my life to you I hallow you I place you in the holy of holies in my life we commit ourselves to you now in Jesus name we pray amen.